BINGO! It turns out that there is a path ,/home/dave/.kde/share/apps/kabc/lock in my case, that had two files in it. Erasing both allowed me to restart Kmail and resume adding to the address book. Thanks to all who helped. Dave -- As for the future, your task is not to forsee it, but to enable it. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in The Wisdom of the Sands --- check out http://www.cdbaby.com/choked
